In Django models.py, what's the difference between default, null, and blank?

Question

• null=True
• blank=True
• default = 0

What's the difference? When do you use what?

Answer 1

Direct from Django model field reference:

Field.null

If True, Django will store empty values as NULL in the database. Default is False.

Note that empty string values will always get stored as empty strings, not as NULL. Only use null=True for non-string fields such as integers, booleans and dates. For both types of fields, you will also need to set blank=True if you wish to permit empty values in forms, as the null parameter only affects database storage (see blank).

Avoid using null on string-based fields such as CharField and TextField unless you have an excellent reason. If a string-based field has null=True, that means it has two possible values for “no data”: NULL, and the empty string. In most cases, it’s redundant to have two possible values for “no data;” Django convention is to use the empty string, not NULL.

Field.blank

If True, the field is allowed to be blank. Default is False.

Note that this is different than null. null is purely database-related, whereas blank is validation-related. If a field has blank=True, validation on Django’s admin site will allow entry of an empty value. If a field has blank=False, the field will be required.

Field.default

The default value for the field. This can be a value or a callable object. If callable it will be called every time a new object is created.